The League Sleepover
by SherlockianGirl
Summary: Exactly what does the League do when the Scarlet Pimpernel is off causing trouble without them?


_**The idea for this parody came mainly from the part of the 1982 SP movie where the League is housed up in France somewhere and they've all crashed in the same room. And every time I watch it, I always think of a sleepover. **_

_**Methinks I write too many SP parodies. **_

_**Baroness Orc, this one's is for you. Thanks for the inspiration!**_

_**

* * *

**_It had been a busy day of thwarting Frenchie officials, making an idiot of Chauvelin, and rescuing aristocratic damsels in distress, and the League was utterly exhausted.

Lord Tony Dewhurst led the band of tired but triumphant Englishman through the door of the ramshackle cottage, better known as League Headquarters, still better known as a ramshackle cottage. He was followed by Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Hastings, Glynde, Galveston, and the not-yet-traitorous-but-on-the-brink-of-it Johnnie Devinne.

But Percy Blakeney was elsewhere, still causing trouble.

Two minutes passed by pleasantly enough, that is, until the dandies were suddenly stricken with a rare and severe case of League Boredom, a condition usually cured by the antics of their entertaining chief, who, as luck would have it, remained absent on this fine and rather boring evening.

Not long after their arrival, they found themselves sitting about the main room in a state of utmost excitement. Ffoulkes was staring at the wall, Tony stared at the opposite wall, Hastings studied the ceiling, Glynde was watching the floor, Galveston was enamored by the light fixtures, and Devinne had just lost his forty-third game of Solitaire in a row.

"I hate this game," Devinne growled, scattering the cards across the floor where he had been playing.

"Ffoulkes, did you know that there are, in fact, seven holes in that wall over there?" Dewhurst inquired matter-of-factly.

"My wall beats yours, Tony. I counted nine over here," Andrew retorted.

"What if we played a game?" Galveston suggested lazily, counting the candelabras on the wall for the ninth time.

The League seemed to perk up at this. "What kind of game?" Hastings asked. "Hazard?"

"Piquet?" one suggested.

"Quadrille?" another put in.

Galveston grimaced. "Seriously, guys. My vote is for Clue."

"I call Colonel Mustard!" Hastings sang, rushing to the closet to retrieve the board game. He returned but was promptly attacked by Ffoulkes, who wrestled the game from his grasp.

"But I'm _always _the Colonel!" Andrew cried, carrying the game to room's only table. "You can be Miss Scarlet."

A mad rush for the colored game pieces suddenly erupted.

"Ow! Ow! Stop it, Galveston! _I_ want to be Professor Plum!" Glynde yelled, prying his friend's hands from his hair.

"No,_ you're_ Mrs. White!"

"Ha! I'm still Colonel Mustard!" Ffoulkes crowed triumphantly, when the conflict had finally ended.

"Nuts. I'm _always _Miss Peacock," Devinne whined as the League pulled their chairs up to the game table.

Clue was played rather calmly for a while, that is, until Dewhurst declared, "It was Miss Scarlet, in the Conservatory, with the Guillotine."

Ffoulkes frowned. "That's not one of the weapons, Tony."

"But I thought we were playing the Republic Edition."

"Then the only weapon _would be_ a guillotine! Where's the fun in that?"

Tony sniffed. "It's the mystery of _who_ guillotined him, and _where_?"

Glynde piped up. "Well, it depends whether Mr. Boddy was an aristocrat or not. If he was, I'd say it was the by orders of the Republic that he was guillotined."

"Are you saying that the Republic came to Boddy Mansion for the express purpose of beheading Mr. Boddy?" Ffoulkes inquired incredulously.

"Yes."

"That they dragged a fourteen-foot tall guillotine all the way to the Conservatory?"

"But of course."

Ffoulkes rolled his eyes. "That's ridiculous. _Clearly_ they would have issued an arrest warrant first."

"Maybe they were saving time," Dewhurst suggested with a shrug.

"Then what do we care about Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlet, and the rest?" Devinne complained. "Who are they in this game?"

"Republic spies who turned Mr. Boddy in," Galveston answered simply. "Case closed."

And so it was decided that the six Clue characters issued a false statement of treason against the aristocratic character of Mr. Boddy, who was consequently arrested and beheaded via guillotine in the Conservatory by order of the French Republic.

"Well, that was jolly fun," Hastings laughed as he rose from the table. "Ffoulkes, where are the snacks?"

"In Tony's bag."

Lord Hastings rummaged through a mountain of sleeping bags and pillows in the corner of the room before he finally plucked a duffel bag from the pile. "Is this it?"

"Yep."

"Erm," Lord Tony suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Perhaps I should-"

"OOOOOHH, TWINKIES!" Hastings cried as he dumped the snack cakes on the table. "SCORE!"

And then a little blue book tumbled out and landed atop the pile of Twinkies.

Dewhurst suddenly looked sick. "Uh, that's-"

"What's this?" Sir Andrew wondered aloud, snatching the thing up before Tony could reach for it. He opened it, squinting at the first page and began reading. "The…Diary of…Lord Antony Dewhurst." His eyes bugged. "_YOU HAVE A DIARY, TONY_?!"

"NO!"

"But it's got _your _name on it."

"HA! Let me see!" Galveston leaned forward eagerly.

Ffoulkes laughed. "You didn't write nasty things about us, did you, Tony?"

"GIVE IT BACK, ANDREW!"

Ffoulkes began reading aloud. "'_October 12th - Glynde has been irritating me to no end. He's always talking when the rest of us want to sleep after such a tiring day. So I drew a moustache on his face while he was sleeping.'"_

"I KNEW IT WAS YOU!" Glynde cried angrily.

Sir Andrew continued, "_'October 19th - Saved some more aristocrats. Beat up a French guard. Ate Hastings' cookies.'"_

"THOSE WERE MY FAVORITES, YOU JERK!" Hastings snarled.

Ffoulkes could barely read any more, his sides were so sore from suppressed laughter. _"'October 26th - Andrew thought it would be funny to eat my last bag of gummy bears. So I wrote, "LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC" on all his stationary.'"_

Andrew Ffoulkes' eyes grew huge as he slammed the diary shut. "TONY! _YOU_ DID THAT!"

Lord Tony stuck his tongue out. "Yes, and I would do it all ov- OOOOF!" Dewhurst hit the ground with a grunt. He looked up to see Sir Andrew Ffoulkes standing above him with a satisfied smile on his face.

Tony glared at him. "Ffoulkes, you did _not _just hit me with a pillow."

"Oh, but I think I did."

"You'll regret this."

"Bring it, Dewhurst."

Lord Tony leapt to his feet and snatched a pillow from the pile of bedding in the corner. "EAT FEATHERS, FFOULKES!" he shouted as he smacked Sir Andrew across the face with the down pillow.

The rest of the League was soon up in pillowy arms.

Devinne socked Galveston with his pillow, then proceeded to pummel Hastings, who had just fallen from a blow from Glynde. Ffoulkes and Dewhurst continued to battle each other, creating a snowstorm of feathers in the middle of the small living room. Galveston then took a swing at Andrew and knocked him to the floor.

"Truce!" Ffoulkes gasped as feathers sputtered from his mouth.

"Really?" Galveston had lowered his pillow unwillingly.

"_No_." Sir Andrew answered before whacking him upside the head.

"Hey, no fair, Johnnie!" Tony was yelling as he fought to ward off Devinne's vicious attacks. "YOU CAN'T USE TWO PILLOWS! IT'S AGAINST LEAGUE PILLOW FIGHT RULES! OW! STOP IT! OW! OW! KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY!!

"YAHHHHHHH!" was Ffoulkes' war cry as he charged the cheating Devinne.

And so it continued, this epic battle of down and pillowcases, until the League utterly exhausted itself, and all the members had collapsed onto various pieces of furniture.

Outside, the sun had plummeted below the horizon and the night had crept in.

"Someone build a fire," Hastings mumbled from the floor. "I want to roast marshmallows."

The other men agreed this was a fantastic idea and gathered around the hearth with sticks and a bag of Jiffy Puffs.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Andrew, stop hogging the flame!" Devinne growled, jostling for a place among his companions.

Ffoulkes shifted his roasting stick to rest on top of Johnnie's and smiled evilly.

"AUGH! NOW MY MARSHMALLOW IS ON FIRE!" Devinne yelped as he pulled it from the flames and blew it out. He stared at the black mass of stickiness before turning to glare at Sir Andrew. "Thanks a lot for incinerating my dessert, Ffoulkes," he spat.

"Just stuff it in your mouth already, Johnnie."

The shades of night had grown their deepest when suddenly Ffoulkes announced in a hoarse whisper, "Ghost story time."

"Promise us it won't be lame," Tony scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"It'll be demmed good, I promise."

And so the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel snuggled deep into their matching scarlet sleeping bags and faced Sir Andrew, who waited for the last of the fire to die out before commencing his story in utter darkness.

"Once," he began in a slow whisper, "there was a fine English dandy named Sir Algernon Bates, who was quite fashionable and very popular with the ladies. However, he had many enemies, and one night, a gang of Frenchies nabbed him from his carriage, drove him out of town, and threw him into a bubbling swamp. They fled the scene, but never expected Bates to come back. But…he _did_."

Ffoulkes paused a moment for dramatic emphasis. Tony and Hastings had sunk a bit deeper into their sleeping bags.

"Out of the swamp he dragged himself, first on his hands and knees, then staggering on two feet. There was a ball at a Frenchie mansion nearby, and he slowly ambled toward it, his fine clothes dripping with mud…"

The League members stared.

"…his wig devoid of powder…"

Their eyes grew wider.

"…and he had NO CRAVAT."

Gasps of terror filled the room.

Ffoulkes continued, his voice lower. "And so he found a young dandy, all alone in the garden, and he staggered toward him. The young man saw the figure of Bates and asked nervously, 'Wh-who are you?' Bates smiled through the muddy grime that covered him and gurgled, 'They call me…_THE SWAMP DANDY_.'"

By now Lord Tony had bit a relatively large hole in the corner of his sleeping bag.

"And you know what Bates said next?"

"What?" Hastings choked, his voice trembling.

Sir Andrew dropped his voice until it was barely audible. "'My dear fellow,' Bates hissed, _'I'VE COME... FOR YOUR CRAVAT_.'"

Muffled screams were heard from inside five sleeping bags.

"Enough, Andrew!" Dewhurst gasped. "No more, please!" The others quickly echoed Tony's plea.

Ffoulkes shrugged, a devilish smile playing on his lips. "All right then, chaps. Time for bed, eh?"

"Quite," Devinne agreed uneasily, zipping his sleeping bag up tightly.

And so silence descended upon the company and the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel settled in for a long sleep after an equally long day, with Ffoulkes, Tony, and Hastings sleeping on the floor, and the others sprawled across an assortment of couches and chairs. Very soon the soft sounds of snoring filled the room.

"Psst, Tony," Ffoulkes whispered to his friend beside him.

"What?"

"_I've come for your cravat_."

"KNOCK IT OFF, ANDREW!"


End file.
